


i don't need a life that's normal (that's way too far away)

by HermioneGirl96



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Exes, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Phone Calls & Telephones, Present Tense, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 11:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermioneGirl96/pseuds/HermioneGirl96
Summary: Jack and Kent were never going to ride off into the sunset. They never promised they would. But Kent did make a different promise, one he was determined to keep. Alternatively, five times Jack leaned on Kent and one time he tried to explain it to Bitty.





	i don't need a life that's normal (that's way too far away)

**Author's Note:**

> 1.) This fic contains suicidal ideation and mentions of drug use. Please stay safe! 2.) Creds to [westernredcedar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/westernredcedar/pseuds/westernredcedar) for their fic [“Shards”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8466712/chapters/19397572) for giving me the idea that Jack took a leave of absence during his first year for mental health reasons and that’s why he missed being hazed. 3.) I’m aware that I’m kind of throwing canon out the window. Sorry not sorry. 4.) This fic ran away from me and scene four only sort of fits with the 5+1 pattern. Oops. 5.) The title is from the musical _Next to Normal_ , which has nothing to do with sports or queerness but is a masterpiece.

1\. 

Jack looks at the uncapped pill bottles in front of him. He kind of doesn’t want to do this. But he doesn’t want to handle his parents freaking out right now, either, so he can’t exactly go to them for help. He gets out his phone and starts scrolling through his contacts, as if it’s a question, whom to call, but it isn’t really. He taps Kent’s name because of course he does, and then he hits Call. 

“Zimms!” says Kent, all energy. “Draft tomorrow! Are you freaking out or what?” 

“Um, yeah,” Jack manages. “I’m a little fucked up right now, to be honest.”

“What did you take?” Kent asks, quietly. Kent’s cool with the pills, even takes them himself sometimes, but it’s only something he does when they’re out, when it’s loud and Jack needs something to take the edge off and Kent wants something to get his own edges _on_. Kent knows it’s not good when Jack takes anything when he’s at home by himself. 

“Nothing,” says Jack. “But I’ve got all the bottles in front of me. I’m a little scared I’m gonna take . . . everything.” 

“Holy shit,” says Kent under his breath. “Okay,” he says more audibly. “Hold on. Stay right where you are and don’t move at all. You hear me? Especially don’t take anything. I’ll be over in ten.”

“Can you—can you keep me on speaker?” Jack asks. 

“Yeah,” says Kent, and Jack can hear him getting up and the sound of doors opening and closing. “D’you want me to talk, or do you wanna talk, or what?”

“Can you talk?”

“Okay,” says Kent. “I’m not gonna tell you that you can’t do what you’re thinking about doing, because we both know you can. That’s why it’s scary, right? Because you can. Because we can both picture it. But I will tell you that I don’t want you to, and that there’s another thing you can do. Actually, there’s multiple other things. You can get drafted. You can play in the NHL. You _can_ , Zimms. You can handle it and you’ll be so fucking great. Or you can take a step back. You don’t have to be dead to avoid the draft. If you don’t wanna do this, you don’t have to. People might not understand, but you’re 19 and they can’t control you. Not even your dad. You hear me? Everyone who matters would rather have you alive. You got that, Zimms? We want you alive. _I_ want you alive.” 

“You’re not the one who has to deal with being me,” Jack grumbles. 

It’s a testament to how well Kent knows Jack and how seriously he’s taking the situation that he doesn’t make a jab about Bad Bob, or Jack being a rich kid, or any of that. Instead, he says, “I know, Zimms. I know. And I’m sorry it’s hard. But you know I’m just a phone call away, and I always will be, even if we’re on different teams, in different time zones, in different countries.”

“You say that now,” says Jack. “But what if I don’t get drafted and you have your NHL friends and someday a husband and a family and I’m just a nobody in Montreal and—”

“Zimms. _Always_ ,” says Kent. “I don’t care about any of that stuff. You’re a priority for me, okay?” It’s probably the closest Kent has ever come to saying _I love you_ to Jack. “You were before we started fucking and you will be after we stop.”

Jack flinches at the reminder that their magical clandestine relationship is doomed, but he forces himself to look away from the pill bottles in front of him and mutter, “Breakups are never that easy.”

“Then we’ll make it that easy. Because we’re Parse and Zimms. We’re invincible. You know we are.”

“Okay,” says Jack. “Okay.”

Kent keeps talking as he drives to Jack’s house, and then he hangs up just long enough to get in the door, greet Bob and Alicia, and rush up to Jack’s room without appearing to rush. Jack knows this drill by now; he and Kent both have it perfected at each other’s houses. When Kent bursts into Jack’s room, he practically tackles Jack in a hard hug that lasts minutes, if not hours. When Kent finally lets go of Jack, he packs up all of Jack’s pills and puts the bottles back in the shoebox where Jack usually keeps them. Then he looks at the shoebox for a while and says, “Are you going to be okay if we just put this under your bed like usual?” 

Jack stares at the shoebox, too, to avoid meeting Kent’s eyes. “Probably not.” 

Kent bites his lip. “If I have you over tonight, will that help? Keep you away from the pills and distract you for a while? Or is this . . . bigger?”

Jack sighs and looks at the floor. “I think it’s bigger. Sorry.” 

Kent takes Jack’s hand. It’s rare for them to be tender outside of sex. “Hey. Don’t be sorry. Brains are hard to get right, you know?” 

“Okay,” says Jack. He’s kind of exhausted, and he’s not really sure why. 

“I don’t think I can fix this,” says Kent. “I’m down to help. Always. I’m always gonna take your calls and answer your texts. But if you really—if you really don’t think you’re safe, I don’t think I can fix that.” 

Jack nods. “Yeah. That’s—that’s fair.” He groans. “I really don’t wanna talk to my parents.” 

“I know,” says Kent. “Believe me, I know. But I think you might have to.” 

“Yeah,” says Jack. 

“Hey,” Kent says. “D’you want me to hold you first? For a while?”

Jack nods again. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” 

2\. 

It takes Jack a while to get over Kent dumping him two days after the draft, the day Jack enters treatment. For the first few months, Jack ignores Kent’s texts, lets the _how are you_ s and the _i believe in you_ s wash over him without responding. But finally, four months in, his therapist gets him to tell the whole story of the night he told his parents about the pills, and that sparks a different kind of conversation about Kent than they’ve had in the past. Jack leaves the therapy session convinced that he should reach out to Kent. 

He starts small: Hey.

Kent’s reply comes hours later: _zimms!_

Oh. Hi. I wasn’t sure you’d still want to talk to me.

_well, i’m not going to pretend i enjoyed being frozen out this whole time, but you were right about breakups. so._

I’m sorry. It was just . . . a lot.

_hey, i get it. how are you?_

Better. A lot better. It’s hard but I feel human again. Without the pills.

_that’s so good!!!! i’m so happy about that!_

Thanks, Kenny. I really appreciate that you don’t hate me.

_you’re a priority, remember, zimms? i’m sorry i couldn’t get back to you sooner, but, practice, you know?_

Yeah, how’s that going?

Kent tells him, and Jack really thinks he can do this. 

3.

Jack really thought he’d be okay when he got to Samwell. He really, really did. That wasn’t something he made up to soothe his parents’ fears. But somehow everything seems to be breaking down. The team hates him, and juggling a full course load with hockey is a lot harder than he thought, and he hasn’t made a single friend. When he made a half-assed attempt to talk to his RA about being lonely (not any of the other stuff, just loneliness and school stress), the guy assured him that not making friends first semester is perfectly normal, which pissed Jack off more than anything. Nothing in his life is “perfectly normal.” But he doesn’t want to tell that to anyone who doesn’t already know—which, admittedly, only rules out people who don’t follow hockey. So he doesn’t go back to his RA. Instead, he calls Kent. 

The thing about Kent is that he’s become a kind of barometer for whether Jack is catastrophizing. He can hear in Kent’s voice—hell, in the way Kent _breathes_ when Jack tells him something—whether or not Kent thinks what Jack is going through is actually serious. It’s probably Jack’s favorite thing about Kent—that he’s 100% willing to call Jack on his bullshit, but he also is dedicated to being there when Jack really needs him. Jack treasures that. He treasures a lot about Kent, actually, like the fact that the one and only time Kent has missed a game without an injury was when Jack had his one and only relapse.

Well, his one and only relapse so far. He’s worried that he’s headed for a second one. 

“Zimms! What’s up?” Kent greets, and Jack can count on one hand the number of times he’s been this relieved about Kent picking up the phone. 

“Everything sucks,” said Jack. 

“Bold statement, college boy,” says Kent. “Back up. What’s going on?” 

“The team hates me, I have no friends, and school is hard.” 

“One thing at a time. Why would the team hate you?”

“Because I’m a hockey snob and I hog the puck.” 

“Okay, well, don’t do that,” says Kent. 

“I’m not _trying_ to be a snob,” Jack whines. “I just know how to do things, and I think everyone can do them, and then they can’t, and then I look like a jerk.” 

“Hey. Once you start winning games for them, they’ll forgive you. Especially if you try to be nice,” says Kent. “Now what was this about having no friends?” 

“When am I going to make friends? I’m in practice or studying every minute that I’m not in class.”

“Well, I don’t know much about college,” says Kent, “but how are other people making friends?” 

“I don’t know. Classes, I guess? The dorms? Teams? Clubs?”

“Well, you have classes, I’m pretty sure you have a dorm, and you definitely have a team.”

“A team that hates me,” Jack points out. 

“Has anyone there been nice to you at all?”

“Well, there’s this one other frog—that’s what the hockey team calls freshmen—who goes by Shitty. He won’t even tell us his actual first name. One of the coaches started saying ‘Bart’ or something the first day of practice and the dude literally cut him off and insisted on being called Shitty. The coaches just call him by his last name now, but the rest of us have kind of adopted the nickname. He’s okay, I guess. I mean, he breaks every rule under the sun, but I think his heart is in the right place. He keeps asking me if I’ll join the team for breakfast.” 

“Doesn’t sound like he hates you, Zimms, even if he does sound weird as fuck.” 

“Okay, yeah, maybe he doesn’t. But everyone else does.” 

“Have you gone to breakfast?”

Jack shakes his head and then reminds himself to vocalize, “No,” because he’s on the phone. “Too many people. The anxiety—it’s bad and it’s getting worse, Kenny. I’m scared. Of, like, how much I’m scared. There’s people _everywhere_. I have a roommate and classes full of people and practice full of people and even the library is full of people. I got used to being alone and I don’t know if I can handle this.” 

Kent takes a deep breath, and Jack can hear it, the caring, the _oh shit this is serious_. “What level are we talking, Zimms?” His voice is three times graver than it’s been for the rest of the conversation. 

“Huh?”

“How bad are things?” 

“Bad,” Jack breathes out. “Pretty fucking bad.” 

“Okay,” says Kent. “I’m gonna look up Samwell’s leave of absence policy and email it to you, okay? See if there’s a way you can take a breather for a while.” 

“That’s a thing?” Jack asks. 

“I dunno,” says Kent. “I’m just turning on my computer. But it probably is, right? Why wouldn’t it be?” 

“College is, like, pretty full-time,” Jack points out. 

“Yeah, but like, real jobs have policies for if you need to leave for a while,” Kent argues. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, yep, mental health is a valid reason for a leave of absence from Samwell.” 

“The team is gonna hate me more if I ditch them right before the season starts,” says Jack. 

“And?” says Kent sharply. “They’ll get over it, and you’ll be alive. That’s worth it, right?”

“That’s starting to feel like a toss-up,” Jack mutters. 

“So, you definitely need a break. I’m emailing you this policy. Can you get in touch with your parents?” 

“Oh, fuck, my parents,” says Jack. 

“It’ll be okay,” says Kent. “I promise. Now, can I do anything else for you?”

“No,” says Jack. “Thanks, Kenny.” 

“I believe in you,” says Kent. “Be in touch, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jack breathes. 

Kent hangs up. 

4\. 

Jack can’t believe he let himself get dragged to a kegster. Well, he can believe it, but only in the context of the weirdness that is whatever’s going on between him and Bitty. Is it flirting? Is it? Are they already a thing and Jack just doesn’t realize? Or does Bitty still hate him from last year and just can’t bring himself to say anything about it? No, that can’t be it. Bitty likes him now, at least as a teammate. Probably even as a friend. Right?

Jack’s more than a little on edge, though. He declined Kent’s invitation to this afternoon’s game and invited him to the Haus instead, not thinking through the whole kegster-and-Bitty-and-the-rest-of-the-team scenario. So now he’s trying to flirt with Bitty, trying to gauge if that’s even welcome, with the knowledge that the ex who means the most to him—who’s still one of his best friends, when push comes to shove—is going to show up any minute. 

He’s just finished telling Bitty about kicking a bunch of football players out of the Haus and turning the fire extinguisher on them when he hears, above the din of the party, “Zimms!” 

“I thought you said you didn’t have a hockey nickname, Jack,” says Bitty, sounding slightly accusatory, just before Jack finds himself tackle-hugged by Kent. 

When Jack disentangles himself from Kent—and damn, this probably isn’t the best thing to do in front of Bitty, not if he wants to convey his affection and make Bitty believe it—he says, “I don’t know if ‘Zimms’ was really a hockey nickname. It’s mostly just Kent who’s ever called me that.” 

“Oh. Right,” says Bitty, and now he sounds more disappointed than anything. 

“Hey,” says Jack, putting a tentative hand on Bitty’s elbow. “I like the way my name sounds when you say it.” 

“Yeah?” says Bitty. He might sound hopeful, but Jack doesn’t want to read too much into it. 

“You got a situation here, Zimms?” Kent asks around a laugh. 

Jack blushes. “I—”

Kent is really laughing now. “You didn’t think this through at all, did you?”

Jack looks at his shoes. “No.” 

“You don’t have to hang out with me,” says Kent. “I mean, I did drive all the way here from Boston, but it’s chill.” 

“No,” says Bitty. “You two haven’t seen each other in forever. You go have fun.” 

“You could join us?” says Jack, hating that it sounds like a question. 

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude,” says Bitty. His cheer sounds forced. “But maybe let me have that selfie first?” 

“Of course,” says Jack, and he smiles for the camera. That part’s easier than usual; it’s honestly hard _not_ to smile around Bitty. 

“Let’s head upstairs,” Jack says to Kent once Bitty’s done taking the selfie. 

“Sounds good,” Kent replies. Once they’re in Jack’s room, Kent settles into Jack’s desk chair and asks, “What the fuck was that?”

“Huh?” Jack asks, sitting on the bed.

“You. The blond kid. What’s going on?”

Jack stares at the floor. “Um. Well. Nothing.” 

“‘Nothing’ my ass,” says Kent. “You like him. He likes you. You gonna do something about it?”

“He plays on my line,” says Jack quietly. “And I’m going pro soon. I won’t be able to be out, and I won’t live here anymore. He deserves someone who can give him a public relationship, and someone who lives nearby.” 

“Zimms, look. This is awkward to say, because of, like, our history and shit, but it’s utter bullshit for you to say someone deserves better than you. I mean, it was one thing when you were 19 and kind of a mess, but you’ve grown and matured and figured things out so, so well. You’re a fucking catch, okay? And not just because you’re good at hockey or whatever. You’re just a good person, one who cares and tries and all that shit people should do more of. You like this kid, go get him, you hear me?” 

Jack swallows, searching Kent’s face. All he finds is sincerity. “Thanks, Kenny.” 

“I can go play pong if you want, give you some space,” Kent suggests. 

“You drove all this way—”

“And it’s a roaring party down there. It’d be a shame to miss it,” Kent interrupts. 

Jack shrugs. “I miss all of them.” 

Kent laughs and stands up. “Of course you do, Zimms. Of course you do.” 

Jack stands, too, and crosses the room to open the door. Kent exits and begins heading downstairs, but Jack stays at his door long enough to lock it, and that’s how he hears a muffled sob coming from the room across the hall. Bitty. 

Jack knocks. 

“Not the bathroom,” comes Bitty’s wobbly voice.

“I know,” says Jack. “Mind if I come in?”

A few seconds later, the door opens and Bitty peers around it, not even trying to conceal the fact that he’s crying. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I talk to you?” Jack asks, trying not to let on that his heart is breaking. Did he do this to Bitty?

Bitty gestures at Jack to come into the room before asking, miserably, “Why?”

“I just . . . wanted to make sure you were okay?” Jack says hesitantly. 

Bitty’s face falls even further; Jack doesn’t realize there’s hope there until it drains away. “Oh. Well.”

Jack would do just about anything to get Bitty to stop crying, so he forces himself to say, “Bitty, I was, um, I was flirting with you. Downstairs. Before. And the fact that Kent showed up doesn’t change the fact that I want to flirt with you. That I want to _be_ with you. If, um. If you’ll have me.” 

Bitty gapes at him. “ _If I’ll have you?_ Jack Zimmermann, in what _universe_ would I not want to be with you?” 

Jack is caught between the urge to look at Bitty’s face forever and the urge to look at the ground. “A universe where you want to be able to be public about your relationship? Where you want to date someone who’s going to be around Samwell for the next couple years? Where you want someone who isn’t dealing with mental illness and doesn’t—”

Bitty walks forward as Jack is speaking and lays a hand on Jack’s cheek. It’s wet from wiping at his own tears, but Jack doesn’t mind. “Jack, honey,” says Bitty, “I want to be with you so much. I’ve wanted a relationship with you for ages. Please never think you’re not good enough. You’re so good, okay?”

Jack’s tearing up, too, but in a good way.

He wakes up in Bitty’s bed, fully clothed, to a text from Kent: _i hope this means you figured things out. it was a good party. watch the next game and cheer for me, yeah?_

5\. 

The pressure of picking a team is making spring semester of Jack’s senior year kind of miserable, although Bitty is a massive bright spot. Even with Bitty—or perhaps partially because of Bitty, not that Jack would _ever_ phrase it that way—preparing to graduate is a lot. Ransom and his spreadsheets are practically a lifesaver, but even so Jack gets to the point where he needs to (as he phrases it in his head) call in the big guns, because the seven days between each therapy session and the next are starting to feel like a really long time. 

“Zimms!” Kent says when he picks up, just like usual. 

“Hey,” says Jack. “So, picking a team is hard.” 

“No shit,” says Kent. “Are you considering Vegas?”

“Kind of?” says Jack. “I don’t really . . . have a firm idea of what’s in or what’s out right now.”

“Do you have a preference?”

“Maybe? I want to be near Bitty, so I’m definitely thinking about Providence and Boston.” Jack’s told Kent about Bitty by now, and that’s gone well, even though it’s been awkward.

“You wanna stake your NHL debut on a relationship you’ve been in for under six months?”

No one’s phrased it like that to Jack before, but he only has to think about it for a second before saying, “Yeah. I do.” 

“Woah, okay, you sound sure about that.” 

“I . . . I guess I am?”

“Well, cool,” says Kent. “So which do you like better, the Falconers or the Bruins?”

Once again, Jack only has to think for a second. “The Falconers. Georgia Martin is just . . . great. And it’s a good offer, and the guys I’ve met seem cool. And the vibe I’m getting from Boston is honestly just a little weird? Like, I’m sure it’s fine, but yeah, I prefer the Falcs.” 

“Sounds like you’ve got your mind made up,” says Kent. 

“But what if I’m making a mistake? What if—”

“Nope,” says Kent. “You can’t know all the variables. There is no perfect choice, and there’s more than one choice that’s good. You wanna play for the Falcs, play for the Falcs.” 

“I think I’m still gonna deliberate for a few weeks,” says Jack. “But thanks. This helped. I feel . . . better.” 

“I’m glad,” says Kent. “Anything else I can do for you?” 

“No,” says Jack. “Thanks for, you know, everything. For actually always taking my calls. It—it means a lot.” 

“Zimms, you don’t have to thank me. This is what I do. I signed up for this at 17 and I knew what I was getting into.” 

“Still. You could’ve left anytime. Hell, you could’ve been a huge jerk about it.” 

“Whatever,” says Kent. “Are you good now?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Cool.” Kent hangs up. 

+1

“So one of my followers on my vlog asked if it’s a good idea to discuss your relationship history with your partner,” says Bitty one day while he and Jack are in the Haus kitchen making pies. “And I figured it probably would be. I mean, I don’t have much of a history, but I’d be happy to tell you about it, and I’m curious to know yours.” 

Jack takes a deep breath. He can do this. Bitty will understand. “Okay.” 

Bitty looks up from rolling out dough. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?” He looks concerned. 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” says Jack. “Mine is just . . . a little unorthodox? But nothing bad, I swear.” 

“Okay,” says Bitty. “Do you want to go first or should I?”

“Why don’t you?” Jack suggests. 

“Okay, so I went to Winter Screw with a guy from the rugby team named Alex. He tried to kiss me at Annie’s when we went on our date, but I chickened out, and that was the end of that. And he’s the only guy before you who even _tried_ to kiss me, so that’s literally everything. There.” 

Jack nods. “Well, you were right; that’s not much of a history. Has our relationship been going okay for you?”

Now Bitty’s head absolutely _snaps_ up. “Of course it has! Jack Zimmermann, why are you asking me _that_?”

Jack sets down the apple he’s peeling. “Because you don’t have much experience and I hope I’m not, like, moving too fast for you, or taking advantage, or anything like that.” 

“Well, you’re _not_ ,” says Bitty forcefully. “Just because I don’t have experience doesn’t mean I don’t know what I want.” 

Jack nods. “Good.” He picks the apple back up and says, “Well, the parts of my history that are easy to explain are the parts that have happened at Samwell. I went to Winter Screw with a girl named Kate my freshman year, and then there was a girl named Samantha who I dated most of sophomore year, and then I went to Winter Screw with Camilla junior year and we sort of kept fooling around for a while after that, nothing major. I—well, I had sex with each of them, because that’s kind of what Winter Screw is about, but Samantha was the only one I was at all serious about, in terms of, like, feelings, and even that one only lasted about seven months.” 

Bitty nods. “Okay.” 

“You sure you’re doing okay, bud?” Jack asks. 

Bitty nods harder. “Yeah, for sure.” 

“Okay, good,” says Jack. “Now, the part of my history that’s harder to explain is what happened before Samwell. I mean, I had a girlfriend named Chloe for a while in high school when I was 15, but that wasn’t particularly serious. That’s not what I’m talking about, really. I’m talking about the fact that, when I was in juniors, I hooked up with my teammate Kent a lot. Well, I think you knew that. But yeah. We weren’t public about it, obviously, but we were definitely a couple, and he dumped me the day I went to rehab—I think just because he couldn’t handle it, not when he’d just been drafted—but he’s also the one I called the night I almost attempted suicide, and he’s probably the reason I’m still alive, and he’s taken all of my calls and texts for the last several years even though there was a time when I froze him out, and he’s been there for me through a lot of real shit. And things are very, very over between us and I don’t want you to see him as a threat, but I really want you to be okay with him being a part of my life because it’s so helpful to have him around.” 

The dough is rolled out by now, and Jack has finished slicing and peeling his apples. Bitty looks up from the bowl of apple slices and says, “Jack, honey, anyone who’s saved your life is welcome to stick around, in your life and in mine. If you say things are over, I believe you. Okay?”

Jack lets out a long breath. “Thank you.” 

“Hey, no need to thank me; I’m just being reasonable,” says Bitty.

“Maybe,” says Jack, “but do you know how rare that is?”

Bitty shrugs. “I’ve just never been the jealous type.” 

Jack comes over and scoops Bitty up into a hug. “You know I love you, right, Bits?”

“I love you too,” Bitty breathes back.


End file.
